[Xist]

The Electric Vehicle Company (EVC) had more than 600 electric cabs operating in New York with smaller fleets in Boston, Baltimore, and other eastern cities by the early 1900s

In New York, the downtime it took to recharge batteries was addressed by converting an ice arena into a battery-swapping station where a cab could drive in, have its spent batteries replaced with a recharged set, and move on out. Brilliant, but like many a startup, it expanded too quickly, ran into unforeseen conflicts among investors and partners, and the whole taxi venture had collapsed by 1907.
EVC’s battery supplier (which was an investor and partner) became what we know today as Exide. Its manufacturing partner, Pope (also a gasoline-car pioneer), took the technology and applied a name from its thriving bicycle business, Columbia, to a run of cars for public sale. Columbia [bottom right] reached the 1000-units-built milestone well before those visionary mass-manufacturers in Detroit, Ransom Olds and Henry Ford, got up to speed.

Worth the Watt: A Brief History of the Electric Car, 1830 to Present

Henry Ford's wife Clara drove an EV from 1908 to 1914 because she found her husband’s product dirty and noisy!

Rich women also preferred electric cars because gassers of that time required hand-cranking, so there were charging stations in city centers, but electric cars were doomed once electric starters were invented.

GM built an electric Corvair in 1964 and then another in 1966 using exotic components. It had a top speed of 80 MPH and range of 40-80 miles, but the batteries could survive only 100 recharge cycles and the pack cost $160,000--in 1966 dollars.

The Citicar and Comuta-Car sold "4444 units, making it the largest electric-car producer in America since the end of World War II, a distinction it would maintain until 2013."

This car may have led to the creation of Tesla:

Alan Cocconi founded AC Propulsion in San Dimas, California, in 1992. He provided GM with much of the electric-related genius that made the Impact concept and subsequent EV1 work properly, including contributions to its inverter.

In 1997, AC Propulsion revealed the tzero seen here, with 150 kW (201 horsepower) and lead-acid batteries (Johnson Controls Optima Yellow Tops). The body and chassis were basically the pre-existing Piontek Sportech fiberglass kit car.

Eventual Tesla Motors co-founder Martin Eberhard commissioned a tzero using lithium-ion cells, which were just becoming available. It was supposed to have a 0-to-60-mph in 3.7 seconds, but cost $220,000.

The creators "resisted putting the car into production, Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning incorporated Tesla Motors in 2003."

They say the first Roadsters were basically tzeros with Lotus Elise bodies, which were one grade above kit cars.

Shai Agassi founded Better Place in 2009 and went through more than $850 million in investments before going bankrupt in 2013.

The business plan "relied on the notion of a standardized battery pack that could be swapped out rather than recharged onboard," but Agassi excelled in offending other automakers, who he needed to build the batteries.

Thirteen years since its incorporation and eight orbits of the sun since introducing its first production car, in those terms, Tesla has outlasted nearly every other new startup auto company since Porsche and Ferrari and Lamborghini were born after WWII.

Some day I may remember what I was trying to find.

By the way, I have tried repeatedly to find statistics on Prius batteries, but all that I get is opinion.